1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to knitted casings or nettings for encasing meat products during processing and, more specifically, to a casing comprising a stockinette integrally formed with one or more circumferential ribs for forming a meat product having a rippled or ribbed appearance.
2. Description of the Related Art
Meat products, such as hams, poultry and the like, are traditionally encased in a netting during the cooking and/or smoking processes. The meat tends to bulge through the netting, forming a visually pleasing pattern or texture of squares on the surface of the product when the netting is removed following processing. The extent to which the meat bulges through the netting depends upon its consistency and is difficult to control. As a result, in many meat products, portions of netting may become embedded in the meat during processing and hamper removal of the netting. The problem is particularly acute in forming products from raw meat mixtures in ground or emulsion form. To overcome this problem, the raw meat mixture may be stuffed into a casing made of a suitable synthetic, collagen, or knitted material prior to being encased in the netting. A knitted fabric casing is generally known as a stockinette. The finely knitted fabric stockinette is especially advantageous because it is permeable to smoke yet not sufficiently porous to allow the meat particles to penetrate it.
Practitioners in the art have improved upon the above-described process involving a stockinette and netting combination. U.S. Pat. No. 5,413,148 describes a casing comprising a finely knitted, relatively resilient or stretchable stockinette fabric integrally knitted with more widely spaced longitudinal and circumferential strands that are made of a heavier thread and are less resilient or stretchable. When the raw meat mixture is stuffed into the casing, the square areas of stockinette fabric bounded by the longitudinal and circumferential strands expand or stretch to a much greater extent than the strands, thereby forming the desirable pattern of square bulges on the surface of the meat.
A rippled surface texture resembling a series of annular bulges is desirable in certain types of ham products known as ripple hams or ribbed hams or, in certain regions of the United States, as Virginia hams. The most prevalent process comprises stuffing a raw meat mixture into a liquid-impermeable cook-in bag, placing the stuffed bag in a stainless steel mold having a concavely rippled interior surface texture, and cooking it in the mold. Following cooking, the product is removed from the mold and cook-in bag and chilled. To smoke the product, it is laid on a rack or hung in a stockinette in the smokehouse.
Handling, cleaning, maintaining and replacing stainless steel molds is uneconomical. It would be desirable to provide a method for forming rippled meat products that obviates the above-described molding step. These needs are satisfied by the novel method and casing of the present invention in the manner described below.